How to Transfer Your Existing Phone Number to a New Provider
The first thing you need to do is pick out a new provider. Your best bet on this is to ask around amongst your friends, family, and coworkers to see who they have their service with, and whether or not they're happy with it. Only ask people from your locality though, the quality of a network that the wireless provider offers can vary greatly depending on where you're at.
After you've done your research and picked out what plan and phone you want and are ready to open a new account, go visit a branch of the provider that you'd like to sign up with. Tell their sales persons that you'd like to start service with them and that you want to port your existing number to them. They will begin a process and work with your existing provider to transfer the number.
Don't let your old cell phone company refuse to port your number. Under federal law, they cannot refuse to port your number for any reason, even if you owe them money on a bill, or have a dispute with the company. You will have to pay them the early termination fee to the old company before the process will be completed successfully. Don't cancel your existing service with your old cell phone carrier until the process is complete, otherwise you might lose your cell phone number. The whole process should take 2 to 2.5 hours for the transfer to occur from your old phone.
When you are transferring to a new service and porting a number, don't sign up for your new service online. If you were to do that, your phone service would be transferred to a new phone that you don't have yet. This means you won't be able to receive any calls on that phone number until Fedex or UPS delivers the phone to you, which could take up to a week!
Published by Matthew Paulson
I am a very busy undergraduate, I'm involved with nine different campus organizations and work five different jobs. Most notably, I am the editor-in-chief of DSU's Trojan Times. View profile
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2 Comments
Post a CommentCable Vision is the worst company to deal with number transfer from existing cable vision account..they are known to give lot of trouble to customers and still not transfer the old phone number to any new carrier..they are hands in glove with the government..and the government lets them do this ..this is so ridiculous..I gave them enought time to transfer the number still they disconnected the account without transferring my number and now they are saying they cant do cos the account is disconnected..
HOPE THE GOVENMENT IS LISTENING...SHAME ON ALL RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT --They are all crooks..
You stated in you article "You will have to pay them the early termination fee to the old company before the process will be completed successfully"..
This is FALSE. The old cellular company CANNOT refuse to port any number in your name to another account in the same area in YOUR NAME.
See: http://www.fcc.gov/cib/consumerfacts/numbport.html
The FCC specifically bars this.
If the account is in your name (this is why the new company you are porting to wants you to have your billing statement on hand) then you can simply transfer YOUR number to YOUR new account without anybodys permission regardless of whether you owe the old carrier any fees, or balance. Period.
If you have any problems, file a complaint with the FCC. Better yet, if can afford it, hire a lawyer who knows FCC regs. The ensuing lawsuit's fees can be recovered from the old cell phone carrier.